White Lines
by shihx
Summary: In the bleak world of Sherry's old days, everyone had their own agendas and everything was based on half-truths. To unknot an entwined curiosity of hers, Sherry plotted to trick Gin into feeding her information. But Gin was never a man to be fooled with in the first place...
1. Frazils

**This story follows the events of my previous story, Dog Days and A Feint Intervention. You might want to finish reading them first before getting down here.**

* * *

"Do you want to hear the chemistry?"

Her sarcasm was dressed in a voice so stern and almost too cold, in contrast to the scorching summer day that it was. Her aim was sharp, yet her gaze didn't move an inch from her little playthings—mostly deadly—with which her both hands were so busy; refusing to pay homage to the even deadlier man planking on the steely wall before her. He shot back.

"I'd rather hear why you hadn't called me directly, Sherry." His silvery hair waved as he prowled closer to her rear. Soon the icy surface of the scientist' latex gloves were warming up as an effect of its friction with the gentle touch of his palms; even if warmth wouldn't be a proper attribution of him. In fact, Sherry's back was already chilly as he spared it no space with his own build. The air he breathed around her rear neck through her ear was stalactite sharp. "Is that how much you hate me?"

The tubes Sherry held shambled in refusal of his advances. She timidly sledded to the other edge of the cabinet fully filled with substances and apparatuses, in alibi of reaching a distant bottle of substance. Silently sighing, she tried coming up with any answer that might sound sensible, and failed. "What's the difference? It's not like I expected Vodka not to tell you,"

Gin knew she wasn't prepared for an answer. What he knew he didn't was on what occasion did she betray her incessant determination to rid his presence from her lab.

"You're here because I need something from you..." Not a word she spoke of was any lie. At least, so far. "...and it's for research purpose, of course."

Gin gave up on his standing, relenting to space their footings as he took her throne in the form of a grand rolling chair by the paneled window. It was shut, obviously. Neither the commander nor his relative subordinate was into lights. He crossed his legs and bent his elbows, in anticipation of her so called development report.

"This is rat number five, a genetically altered specimen with complications of renal impairments, heart insufficiency, and minor lobotomy. In other words, it should have been dead. But as you see, it's alive and well, and whether we would find out if it had anything to do with the current development of the drug, code APTX4868, it is up to you,"

That was the least science Sherry could come up with but Gin was still unamused. Not that he was a dimmer one, but this kind of talk wasn't his favorite pastime. In fact, no kind of talk was. "Cut to the chase, Sherry,"

"This lab doesn't have the necessary installments to investigate the drug's further pharmacokinetics. The drug has a weakness that made its study rather complicated, and it's in the form of its rapid elimination rate. Catching the traces of the drugs after administration is like racing with a nitro fueled car, and in this lab, on a limping unicycle. I need you to move the research to a more sophisticated facility, and not in more than a few days before rat five, our current and only lead, ceased to live."

"That's asking a lot. I don't expect you desk workers to understand how it works, but it takes time to find which facility befits our requirements, clear it, and move your whole current logistics there."

Sherry sneered sourly. She threw a shameful glance at Gin, only for a millisecond but it felt terrifying already. "Are you whining, Gin?"

Gin chuckled, in the best attempt of obscuring his being choked with her words. He rose from the chair and headed to the window, flicking one of its blind and peeped out to the quiet street outside the lab. "You should be thankful you're still alive, Sherry,"

_What made you think being dead wouldn't make me feel more alive than now?_ These words she muttered as loud as whispering wind in an empty room, believing what he claimed to be her fluke had splinters of truth in it. If it were someone else who treated Gin the way she treated him, he might as well have been in his last moments alive. Not that she despised death; she would still embrace it. But lately, there were some things she was too resolute to pass. "Allow me to argue that the Boss has been urging the completion of this drug. Besides, you don't need to be in a hunt of a proper facility. I know exactly where I'd be working at,"

Gin let go of his fingers from the blind and retracted himself to where he seated himself previously, ready to hear the continuation of Sherry's rare monologue.

"Murasame lab, Chiyoda. They're going to relocate anyway, all you need to do is to fast forward it."

Her voice broke his focus, and even more so when he heard of that location. "Negative. You haven't heard the news, have you?"

Sherry paused before she went on to the next rat, the next vial of haloperidol. "So it really was you."

"So you have," Gin rose up and skulked forward the stacks of cages, this time barring the distance once lacked from Sherry's back. The vision of a living thing, formerly in a brawl so riotous against the frozen bars of steel that contained it, in matters of seconds lost its vivacity in the hand of some dismal liquid that wouldn't have even moved had a thumb not pushed it down the needle, piqued his interest as it reminded him of his gun. "Is that the drug?"

"Now you're interested?" She put the syringe, now half full of its content, on a metal tray beside the cages. Simultaneously, she picked up another vial; one labeled 'APTX4868', and shoved it on Gin's visual. "That was just sedatives."

Gin watched as she casually spooled out the drug, his lethal stare closely inspecting the littlest gestures the woman before him made; all the little shifts in between the strands of her hair, all the gentle motions of her left bare hand a little too white as a result of its constant mingling with ludicrous amounts of chemicals, all the subtle thuds as it combined forces with her concealed right hand, manhandling the syringe pump into her little friends. Gin couldn't be sure if it was the one rat she called number five earlier. Then again, he didn't care. Not yet. "I don't understand how you can't distinguish my doings from the whatnot, us having known each other this long, this well,"

Sherry could feel her stomach ejecting its fill just from hearing Gin's allegation, but it wasn't her body's to decide what would happen. Playing along was her late game. "Right. It was a little too messy. Anyway, who—"

"A little?" He prowled closer on the purpose of getting a better vision of one of the drugged rats. It was even before he continued that it choked in miserable gasps, body outburst in mortal spasm, leaving only a trace of agony squeaked from its lifeless throat. The green eyes that watched the soul expired blinked. "Your drug kills."

Sherry checked the monitor and jotted down the current time, tagging it '#8'. "The drug has a small index of therapy. Meaning, it mostly kills than saves. A little deviation of dosage shows fatal implication to various host conditions... What was it again about last night? Who'd have screwed up that mu—"

"And this drug leaves no traces in the body?"

No matter how she refused to admit it, not a big part of Gin's claim on how well she knew him was faulty. Gin was a murderer, a merciless one, and that fact Sherry knew too well. Just a stroke of his sentence and the detrimental spark in his eyes could tell Sherry that his intention was nowhere near noble. It was what happened to the last drug; despite its having no lethal properties was fully in their grasp, he was using it as a means to such ends. The stark astonishment in the form of a humoral surge overflew Sherry's senses rebelled as the thought of her impending credits to God knows how many souls were to fall thanks to her work.

On the other hand, as truthful was the fact that Sherry knew Gin, he knew her possibly even better. He knew her being brought up under the organization wings didn't simply buy her concordance with its approaches. He didn't even need to turn his eyes to catch her trembling hands, aghast and in terror, reaching out to his from behind; trying to seize the drug he filched from the cabinet.

The frantic, forlorn shout of dissent coming out from her lungs couldn't penetrate his grit. She shambled, yet not solely because of her despair.

To describe Gin's sentiment to Sherry was to come hell. At one side, he was yearning for her being, craving for the touch he believed he deserved. At another side, he was the Gin everyone had the correct assertion about. The mirthless, atrocious man he always was. To have any desire past avariciousness was against his nature. That was what he chose to believe, that was what they chose to believe.

In her right mind, it won't be a total shock for Sherry if Gin went as far as to take her life as the punishment of her belligerence. Yet during its shy attainment, the naive girl couldn't yet believe Gin would go as far as to knock her out just to obtain the little thing he wanted to take in custody.

Sherry's conscience began decaying as Gin's thumb emptied the liquid in the syringe tube into her cephalic vein, her insurgent eyelids closing along the rhythm of her loss of muscle tones. In less than a few seconds her whole body collapsed inertly onto the cold floor, leaving only her right arms in the confinement of Gin's left. That, and her reflection on Gin's vacant eyes.

"_Aniki!_" The shout busted as the door by its dispatcher slammed. Vodka entered the room, panting. The stairs run had seemingly tired him, only to be farther taken aback with the vision of the organization much prized scientist lying down on the floor, and his superior holding the needle attached to her arms, conveying his responsibility of her mishap. "A-aniki..."

"So, Vodka," Gin took the needle out and let go of his grab, allowing gravity to take over Sherry's body. "Did you get them?"

The sidekick halted his confusion. Not that he was concerned of any sort with the woman in notice, not that it was rare for him to see his _aniki_'s exploit in other people's menace, but never in his wild mind did that certain girl would face her menace in the certain man's hand. "Y-you're right, aniki. Someone's watching over this lab!"

Not the exact kind of answer he would like to have, Gin deemed, although it was him who suggested so. He stepped away from Sherry's body, putting down the syringe, taking out his pocketed pair of gloves and wore them. He reached to the window and peeped through the blind, again.

"They ran away, but I managed to attach a tracker in the car. That was the least thing I can do, they were fast to realize we were tailing them. S-sorry, aniki..."

"It's fine, Vodka." Gin pardoned his underling as he collected the little containers labeled APTX4868, all the baker's dozen of them, tucking them into the spacious compartment in his bleak coat. Vodka watched in bemusement. "We're moving the lab,"

Vodka was not surprised by this. The plan had been circulating this past week, since Gin confided him his suspicion of the lab being spied on. He was wondering if it was Sherry's rejection of the move that had her in her current state, but his job wasn't to concern over her well-being, or the research department in general. It was someone else's job.

"Call him to start right away, Vodka."

As Vodka hurriedly took out her phone and typing a message to a fellow member of the organization, he sneaked glance over his partner, now on his right knees by his rumored lover's body, his hand stroking over her cheek.

"It's a cold world we're living in, Sherry,"

The next thing he sneaked glance over was the girl lying down on the floor he was about to leave as he opened its door, dutifully leading his partner out as the latter instructed. Gin noticed his partner's shy anxiety, and decided to soothe it.

"That was just sedatives."

* * *

**Hello there! Thank you for reading my new story. I hope this one give you more or at least the same enjoyment with the last one. Also, in case any of you was waiting for this update (which took a longer time than usual, I guess), I'd like to have you blame my studies ****_and _****the guy who stole my focus lately. Also, I'm sorry!**

**Do stick around and wait for the next chapter. Don't forget that your reviews are my wages and I have rents to pay ;P cheers!**


	2. Fireworks

**OK here goes my first attempt in bringing up Sherry/Rye, Sherry/Gin, Sherry/Gin/Rye feud, and even arguably a bit of Gin/Rye fan service (the lewdness of your own PoV XD). Enjoy and don't forget to review :3**

* * *

There was a constant stir of terror in that building, a vibe full of fear entailing each of its inhabitants' doing. Each wave of the palms, each step, and each drop of death they concocted. There was a constant stir of terror, a taste of murk their buds know too well yet adapt too poorly. At least for all that remains from the souls within those machines. And at the mainspring of the clockwork was the motionless body on her cold bed, insentient yet agitating in breath.

Then like a shot of firework her eyelids jetted open.

As vigor as the unfastening though, vision didn't come early to those eyes. Rather than the daylight, it was a blurry haze that struck the sight, and the slight degree her neck dodged was enough to spin around the world as she saw it. It costed a mêlée to see the big ticking clock above her room's desk.

_07.20_.

"Eighteen full hours, huh," She chided herself. The scarlet sheets glided down her body, and she realized she was wearing his white lab coat no more, leaving just the velvety sleeveless red turtleneck that ends several inches above her knees, crumpled here and there. That, and a skin-toned bandage that concealed a part of her upper right arms slightly aching as she tried to move it.

She shuddered, but it wasn't her exposed arms that sent shiver down her spines.

Several minutes later, she began to seize control of her limbs. She didn't wait long to start maneuvering out of the bed, staggeringly exited her room on the third level of the lab, grabbing her white coat en route. She was expecting to see some of her subordinates—fellow enlightened brains, yet similarly being bleakly misdirected—occupied on doing their daily chores as shetrailed down the stairs unsteadily. And she did found them buzzling around the second level, although not from doing the daily chores as she expected. Not today.

Instead, they were moving around with big cardboard in their embraces; traveling on a peculiar speed between their desks and the backside gate downstairs. Only some of them noticed her and nodded demurely, but each of them sensed how their person in charge was oblivious about the background of the commotion. Except that she wasn't. She was only surprised how more than half of the facility had already been loaded, at this pace, after only eighteen hours.

And although no one up to this point had dared the rule she established about smoking prohibition in the lab, she picked up the faintest sense of contentment when she saw the traces of smoke by the open back window beside the stairs.

"I feel like you've been body guarding the lab, how frequent you come down around here," she taunted him, placing her hand on the railing without even bothering to look at him.

"I'm not as good as you in math,"

It was a tight race between her cold stare and his, between her sarcastic remarks and his sharp wits, but she wasn't gaining when she tried to snatch away the burning stick encased between his lips; losing it to his no-smoking-while-talking-to-a-lady courtesy. A man too civil for his trade, she thought.

"I forgot the princess has awoken," he amused, carelessly shooting away the half-lit cigarette to a bin nearby, feeding himself the comedy of the lab head bulging her eyes out in protest. He chuckled. "Of course I get to do the packing job while your boyfriend is doing the more action-packed preparation of the new lab,"

It was meant as a taunt, but all it evoked in Shiho's mind was the vision of Gin using her drug to mass murder a set of people to gain access at the new lab. Oh, the cost she had to pay for her little trickery. All she wished was to satisfy her little thirst of notion, and more importantly, to get closer to her sister; earning her the attainable distance to look over her should those notions stray to whichever directions she would dismay. But to be a murderer? A _mass _murderer? Is it that fair a price?

"_All set, sir!_"

The shouting of Dai Moroboshi's man roused Shiho from her daydreaming. He nodded affirmatively and turned his head to the girl standing by his side. "After you, ma'am."

"All set? You have got to be kidding me, Moroboshi Dai. Not hundreds of men could load the whole lab within eighteen hours. Have you checked the basement? You might ha—"

"Eighteen hours? Maybe not. But we sure can in thirty hours."

Eighteen hours was already a long time for someone to stay unconscious, but thirty hours? She should be thankful that she even woke up. For the anesthesia to last that long meant it was already past the drug safety dose, it was by luck that it didn't kill her.

" If it's the daylight you're doubting, well, _it's a dog day after all_..."

He stopped speaking as he saw her frantic air. He knew what smothered her wasn't the dose, but rather whose hand that sent it to her veins. The man who she believed wanted nothing but to have her for himself. The man they call her own.

She was choked on her blow, trying to come up with all the explanation that was held taut beneath her throat. "I... _You..._"

"No."

He said, turning his gawk away from her face.

"_I don't want to hear how it happened._"

Nor how she'd thank him for transporting her body upstairs, but he decided to keep the joke for later.

* * *

Sherry was sitting on the backseat of the yellow painted sedan, posing as a casual passenger in a taxi which in truth was nothing more than a faux. On its wheel was a uniformed driver as phony as the vehicle. He sure drove well, but driving did not seem to be the sole thing he did for a living.

For a moment, she commended herself at how good she had gotten in telling whether someone was a member or not.

Obviously, it would be foolish for Rye to employ a man from outside the organization in such mission. Even on Vodka's drunkest day he wouldn't let something as important as the location of the organization's research facility fall within the grasp of even mere civilians lacking ideas on who they were and what they do. There were times when low-ranking member, often fresh recruits, could be of use. This was one of those; although Rye had to tail the car's every move, monitoring its every maneuver from less than several meters behind.

The Chevrolet front screen was a tad dark, but she was able to spot his olive eyes through the reflection of the rear-view mirror. At least, when he ceased pulling his head down to gulp the canned coffee he raided from her cooler earlier in the old lab. In a split second she could feel his eyes meet her own, but he was fast to escape them as he speed up and tagged himself in a row with the sedan.

She could tell it was close to their destination as he shot those eyeballs briefly to the chauffeur and drove off, disappearing in the maze of buildings that is Tokyo.

In a matter of minutes, Sherry was already in front of Murasame lab, Chiyoda, just like what she ordered. The taxi rolled down to the basement, catching up with the parked semi truck and several slots away from it, the antique Porsche well resided for a while then. Rye got out of the car, tossing his cigarette on the ground and slammed it with his soles before taking his Remington. He stepped forward to the taxi.

"Grab your gun. There might be resistance." He instructed, loading his magazine. "You too."

The latterly ordered was almost sure she wouldn't have to use the gun; it was too quiet for resistance to be likely. Then again, if there was someone who liked to prepare things just in case, it was her.

She took out her Beretta once kept in the inner compartment of her coat and loaded it in a similar manner as Rye watched her stepping out from the car.

In a distance, a shadowy figure of a man with the similar long hair yet stark in contrast of color to his smirked.

Between Sherry and gun, he couldn't decide which stimulated his senses more. There was easily no competition in the world, in _his_ world, for anything more arousing than the vision of Sherry loading a gun. Except the vision of Sherry loading the very gun he gave her.

* * *

"I'm glad you still keep my little gift, Sherry," He tantalized, hand creeping against the reddish brown strands of her hair. "Although you have to remind me to replace it soon. It's a bit outdated..."

"Get_ off_ me_, _Gin."

Her order was crystal clear, but it wasn't in Gin's nature to bow down to his victims' pleas. In fact, he preferred to toy it around. "You're still mad at me, aren't you? Not even the new lab readied at your request can mend it?"

"You think I don't know you only did it for because of your little exposure paranoia?"

At the back of his mind, he swore to kill that scum Rye she must have gained such detail from. "Boss', Sherry. It was that person's decision. And while we're at it, I almost forgot he congratulated you on the research progress. Your parents will be proud..."

If it wasn't for her parents' goal, she wouldn't even land a hand on those tainted chemicals.

"...But he also started to get impatient for the final drug."

Sherry decided to spend her remaining anger to snap back. "If _anyone_ was to be impatient, it was _me. _I _can't_ wait until the day this _whole_ thing ends and I could get out of this _shit hole_ I couldn't even call _life_,"

"And? Where to?" Gin cornered Sherry, pinning her onto the basement wall and with a swift yet delicate movement—almost as if his hand was dancing through the cold metal surface to under her jaw—stuck the rim of his gun onto her neck.

"_Afterlife?_"

The girl held on gunpoint was almost too customized to this gesture of his; taking out his gun and pointed it at her just whenever he felt like it, to the point that she felt her danger sensor betrayed her for not caring anymore. She fully realized, though, her disability to deduce whether his threat was real or a scam.

"I _need_ your _loyalty_, Sherry."

"And we need _you_ to quit wasting time, Gin. The loads are not gonna move on their own."

Aligned behind the menacing man's back was another rim of a gun. This time, a shotgun—rather than a pistol—which clacking sound loading the magazine was stern and intimidating.

Gin smirked, revolving his trunks facing his contender who came back from upstairs just at the best time imaginable. "Funny, Rye. I thought you're sleeping with her sister, now you want to creep with her too?"

"I went down to ask for your help as a man and you're dragging me into a pillow..."

Rye was an ace in firearms, almost all kinds of it. But then again, so was Gin. Before Rye could finish his sentence, the Beretta once dangling on some girl's neck was hung on his forehead, ready to gag its lethal material piercing his skull.

"..._talk_," Despite his perilous standing, he grinned, rejoicing how he would always talk with Gin through guns like this if he could. In concordance, Gin's cold eyes sparked.

"If you could keep your hands off from my property, I would be _grateful_,"

"If you could lend me a hand setting up the lab, I would be more than grateful. Your girlfriend would too. That person would too."

That was when the voice through Gin's comm decided to break the party up. "_Aniki, time to go! The target is seen on site!_"

Gin wondered when the last time Vodka called upon his presence in a vacant circumstance was, without having to halt anything he was up to that point. Such as this little joyride with the man whose head he would have blown hadn't his shotgun got in the way in prior.

"Huh," He pulled back his gun, putting it back into his black coat. "Just because you were given a stupid mission doesn't mean you own the business,"

"See you tomorrow night, Gin."

Right. Rye wasn't even planning to lose his cool. The meeting with the boss was due just the next day, and putting his own stance in a risqué position by quarreling with that person's yet most trusted agent wasn't the wisest thing he could do. Then again, he felt that Gin just experienced an equal thrill to their needy bones just the way he liked it.

Being an idle spectator during the commotion, Sherry locked eyes with Gin as the latter drove out from the parking lot behind the wheel of his classic Porsche. She hated to admit that even she was particularly entertained with what had just flashed upon her eyes.

All before his sly, menacing grin in the last second of their eye contact brought her goosebumps back. A signal she knew too well was intended to inform her on his vicious plan. The means in which he would use as an escort said target to his deathbed.

Then like a firework her eyes jetted open.

"Shall we go upstairs?" Rye asked, before he realized he wasn't even expecting an answer judging from the paleness her disrupted facial vessels caused.

It was the chemical talking.


	3. Chemicals

It needed less than awhile for the Chevrolet to arrive in front of Sherry's abode—a modest flat, aesthetically passable and lacking illumination, in one of the mutest district in Tokyo; perfect for any individual in submergence.

What seemed to take awhile was for Sherry to start disembarking from the vehicle.

Rye took an inquisitive glance on her, but quickly returned his gawk against his wheels. There was a peculiar silence built between the two, and it didn't end in one, two, nor three seconds. Rye peeked into his passenger seat's visor mirror, on the pursuit of coming to terms with the situation.

Her stare was empty; her mind though, another way around.

"Come on in," She broke the silence; only with a low voice that wasn't even audible hadn't they sulked in a neighborhood quieter than the poles of Earth. "I owe you some drinks," she added, statically lacking in expression.

It was no less than true that after all the heap of that day's workload, Moroboshi Dai could use a can of beer or two. And what better way could there be than to have it with the closest person he had to a friendly coworker? Of course it was not his nature to pay a visit to his associates', but he could hardly find any reason why he shouldn't at the moment. Of course there was the probability that she could use some company too.

Rye, still in a plain air, shrugged in approval. "Why not?"

Having parked the semi-truck conveniently on the side of the road, the pair proceeded to come ashore. Sherry was on the lead; granting Rye entries to the unsurprisingly plenty barriers in her door intended for security.

"Don't mess around, put soundly your grimy shoes here, and have a seat there."

Rye was awed by the interior as he walked to the couch; it was unexpectedly sophisticated and far from what was to be anticipated exteriorly. He admitted the girl, who now had disappeared into another room, had some decent—if not keen—eyes for visuals.

He threw himself to the couch and leaned to its side. The television in front of him was looking unused, like the rest of the apartment. No wonder, she had stayed for months in her previous lab. He skimmed around trying to locate the remote control; to the left to no avail, to the right in vain, and to the rear—where he had been feeling wedged since his first landing on the couch, and grinned when he was able to seize the object. He nibbled with it for awhile and put it right back where he found it.

Sherry was back; on her hand were a bottle of bourbon and a pair of highballs, both plenty in ice cubes. She put down her load on a coffee table the distance of straightened feet from the couch, and start pouring the liquor—half-full to the highball already filled with mint sprigs and sugar, and full to the one with ice only. She then joined her guest in a tacit—if not nervously—manner, and started to distribute the neat liqueur to him.

"I almost forgot that it wouldn't be a wise act to drink things that _you_ concoct,"

For a moment, Sherry contemplated how it was rather peculiar, the jest gestures he habitually put up around her, especially when she compared it to his somber and hostile demeanor during missions, or to virtually each of every other member of the organization. Even with Gin—whom others had acted so courteously around due to his ruthless brutality—he didn't seem to feel the need to compromise his disdain.

Sherry hushed the temptation of expecting there was more to it than just her being his lover's little sister. She had accustomed herself to hold back from looking ahead to anything, and the older she grew, the better she had gotten doing it.

"Shut up and drink it before I change my mind"

It was Sherry's myriad number of orders that Rye started losing count. Another thing he started losing was his previous wisdom, and though Sherry had disputed his suspicion, she was no less dubious on the man letting his guard down. A gulp down his throat and she grabbed her own annual allowance dose of mint julep, shook it gently, and sipped it along.

In a flash, the clock showed 4.45 in the a.m and the television started to get blurry. It was past two hour and over the fifth glass already. Perhaps it was the alcohol that diluted the time. Perhaps it was the alcohol that brought up the warmth in the room, despite the fact that except some callous remarks on the television show—it was, by the way, a sort of mushy drama they were forced into watching since the channel had the best reception—not much conversation were brought up between the two.

Perhaps it was the alcohol, that Sherry, then arisen and stood up before Rye, started to stare into her guest's pair of eyes, with intensity no less than the deepest of the Pacific trenches. Perhaps, it was _still_ the alcohol that then she started to crawl onto his open lap.

Rye choked in disbelief, and although he was under influence, a man like him was always more sober than not. He moved his legs uneasily, in such a way that hinted his surprise, yet subtle enough to let the girl remain where she had seated herself.

"Is this a test?"

Sherry knew exactly what he was referring to; and she knew exactly that it was her sister—a woman of dignity and compassion she had always adored, maybe too much, that she had given up the endeavor of being the good side of the sisterhood exclusively to her—who was also, the closest he had to a lover. Sherry understood fully the situation and the compensation she might have to pay later, and she had spent an ample while deliberating her current course of action. This time though, Sherry had determined that she could not wait any longer. _This_ had to be done. She _had_ to get a head on, and she _had_ to be at liberty to explore the man before him, even if it was momentary.

She answered the question by creeping farther towards his trunk, driving him half shaken and red. Her fingers tiptoed on his cheek, then down on his neck, and on his chest. She pushed herself tighter against his body, and felt a flush of blood briskly filling up her buccal capillaries.

At that point, Rye was stoned, and struggling to reconcile with his conscience.

But Sherry wasn't. In fact, she had never been soberer. She sneaked her hands tenderly to the back of the man before her, sweeping away every strand of the jet black hair that stood between her fingers and his build. She pulled her hands further down, in a slow, captivating motion, and finally sensed her hands arriving on their destination. With a solid grab, she pulled it off.

Her two hands clenched firmly the handle of the deadly entity; its cold, metal end imprinting on the forehead of the man whose eyes pinpointed from shock. Sherry's arm straightened, creating distance between Rye's torso and hers that few seconds earlier did not exist. Her right pointer was steady on the trigger; ready to send along a bullet or two with the poor man's soul should he not give what she required him to.

"_Who are you and what do you want?!_"

It was not a question; it was another order for Rye, this time to explain himself. And it was delivered in a voice so tense it was breaking.

Rye understood that this was an inevitable turn of event for he had been deliberately leaving trails of his secret mission to her. He, against advice from his superiors, was attempting to wake Sherry's consciousness about the existence of a chance for her to escape from the filthy life she didn't deserve. He, having been hanging out with Akemi for a while, had taken onto him some sort of responsibility to drag Sherry out of the darkness.

But Rye was on her gunpoint, having spared his life on the line should she, rather than considering the brighter concept of life, choose her allegiance to the body of which—while foul—had been credited in raising her for the last twenty years.

Then again, Rye, or so he was called, was already an excellent operation officer of the FBI at a relatively young age. That thanks to his combat skills, and the exceptional way he familiarized himself with firearms, he succeeded to infiltrate the organization known for its sturdy fortifications against law enforcers, and was already a step away into completing his current mission. On the other hand, Sherry had just used a gun once, twice, four times at max—none of them fatal—for when her 'bodyguards' failed to assist her during dangers.

She was right out outclassed, and there was not much she could do when with his prominent hand—suitably left—swiftly tackled her tender ones, and rotate the barrel of the gun in a one hundred eighty degrees motion; its lip kissing her glabellar point, switching her pointer with his on the trigger.

Her vessels were then surmounted with inundations of adrenaline.

"You should stick with the highballs. This thing right here is my area," His voice, to Sherry's terror, was deadly. She was _wrong_ after all; he was not the man Sherry expected him to be. He was a murderer; not a fiber of his being different with the rest of the crooks she had always known. "You didn't think I wasn't expecting this, did you?"

The next thing she knew was that the gun was loaded, and was more than ready to pierce a bullet through her cranium. Should he be a man of Gin's sort, as divinely sensible considering his attitude—excluding the aforementioned occasional time—never would he hesitate to end her. Should he be a man of Gin's sort, death was upon her; again, not that she was too in love with live. The thought of Akemi's safety overflew her mind; he was her sister's object of affection, and that it was this grin that formed in his face when he was about to shoot her, she might need a subtle notification to raise her awareness of who he was, to say the least. She might not have time for that, though, since he was clearly pulling out his trigger finger, drawing the trigger to its near end.

Shiho had no choice but to close her eyes and embrace the end of her. It was about time.

_CLACK!_

Her heart skipped a beat. Strangely, it was just one beat. And instead of having her last breath, her lungs pumps faster in response of her rising tension.

She was still alive and well. She opened her eyes; and found Rye's right palm clasped before her eyes. When he opened it, the shimmering silver tint of bullets gleamed against the in-appending street light through the window glass.

"Of course I _was _expecting this, you petty criminal,"

Rye had had the most comfortable opportunity to take away all the bullets loaded in the Beretta hidden in within the couch, just right where he laid his back on. Even the course of its finding was trivial—it began as a search for the television remote control. Sherry certainly didn't expect Rye to have the behavior of someone who would bump on the couch at the first place, and thus sensing the slightly protruding thing on his back. Who would have guessed the means of entertainment Rye thought it was turned out to be such a lethal tool?

He was having a sheer luck; not that he needed it critically. In fact, Sherry was expecting not to have to make a kill—she had enough of the word. She was just using the gun as a means to threaten Rye into confessing whatever he was up to.

"As for the answer of your question," Rye put down the firearm, carried Sherry on his both arms, and removed her from his lap; seating her back to her former throne on the left side of the couch. Sherry was still stunned, and consequently staring emptily at the glass of mint julep she hadn't even finished.

"Other than making sure of your well-being? Let's see... Nothing you should worry about, I guess."

He didn't sit back down by Sherry's right. He took his jacket, once messily lingering to the edge of the couch, and put it on. He grabbed his long hair tucked in the jacket and let it slid out. He was then a Rye again, an inclusive Moroboshi Dai. With his undershirt tucked in secrets Shiho had yet to figure out—not that it sparked as much curiosity anymore. He walked past the narrow hall and put on his shoes in the mud room. Shiho was not even looking.

"One last thing," She muttered, still having an intact focus at the mint julep. "Is onee-san safe?"

The man, already on his shoes, smiled subtly.

"I will make sure she is,"

It was somewhere close to five in the morning; Sherry hadn't paid herself a sleep before the two hours she had to prepare for 'work'. Shortly, her gaze was breathed a life and the mint julep in front of her suddenly looking increasingly appealing. She grabbed the glass and gulped it empty, leaving its mints leaves on the base of the glass. She rose from the couch, taking with her the empty glasses and the bottle of bourbon where not even a half of a shot glass it could fill. She went to the kitchen and put the glasses on the washbasin.

Perhaps it was the alcohol that whispered to her conscience to let go of the man she held at gunpoint just a moment earlier. Perhaps it was the alcohol that convinced her to give him a benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it was the alcohol, that took the credit of the growing faith within her very self.

But Shiho, still, was as sober as a just judge. And she wasn't sure why, but there's an escalating faith within herself, that the man who just left her place, he was to open a door she thought the key did not exist. She wasn't sure what, but heck—her doubts didn't even shriek as strident as she would've daily heard.

She wasn't sure when, but she knew something vital was about to occur.

Maybe tonight when the man responsible for her bewilderness was to meet with their higher-up on that exclusive meeting he had long been anticipating. Maybe next week, when Shiho wouldn't have a clue about his whereabouts. Maybe in a time so far in the future Shiho wouldn't even be certain of its existence, but she could already smell that scent.

The scent of _liberty_.

Somewhere close to five in that very morning was the last time Shiho Miyano met Dai Moroboshi.


End file.
